November
16, 2001  For dry states on the East Coast, there is some
hope over the horizon. A stormier pattern is shaping up and should
bring overdue rain from Georgia to Maine by the end of the month,
forecasters at NOAA's National
Weather Service said Friday. In its monthly drought outlook
for the nation, forecasters said they will monitor the changing
weather patterns for clues to whether the break in the dry spell
is temporary, or one that lasts a while.

"The key word for this
forecast is `relief'," said Doug Le Comte, a scientist at
NOAA's Climate Prediction
Center. "The forecast provides some hope that this new
[storm] pattern will bring both short and long-term relief across
the eastern half of the country."

If the outlook holds promise
for the East, then the heavy rains this week in the drought-plagued
Pacific Northwest and Texas have been nothing short of relief.
The rains have eased the potential for wildfires across Washington
and Oregon, and in Texas, this week's deluge has chipped away
at water deficits.

Good News, Bad News
The good news for many East Coast states, Le Comte said, is that
long-range outlooks don't show below-normal rain and snow to
persist this winter. "By the end of February, these areas
should see improvement in drought conditions," he said.

Drought conditions should improve this winter in Texas
and throughout the southern Plains. In the West, especially the
Pacific Northwest, the outlook doesn't call for a repeat of last
winter's dearth of snow and rain, Le Comte said.

However, the news isn't so
good from central and southern Georgia to southeastern Virginia.
"The odds favor the drought to linger," Le Comte said,
adding periodic storms may bring temporary improvement in the
coming months.

Reasons and Impacts of the
Eastern Drought
Sunny days this fall came with a price: The lack of rain caused
reservoirs to drop, farmers to worry and wildfires to ignite.
Dry conditions have sparked wildfires in parts of Virginia, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas. The mountains in eastern
Kentucky have been shrouded in fire and smoke, pushing the total
of burned acreage passed 150,000.

Washington, D.C.,
recorded its driest September-October period since 1967. Connecticut
and New Jersey experienced their third driest October. It was
the fourth driest October for Delaware, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island and Virginia.

"Beginning in August,
the current dry spell has brought less than a quarter of the
precipitation we would normally expect in parts of the Northeast,"
said Peter Gabrielson, deputy regional hydrologist at the National Weather Service
Eastern Region headquarters. He also said in Maine, shallow
wells are running dry and New York City reservoirs stand at only
33 percent capacity.

Le Comte said the position of the jet stream's upper-air currents,
which normally bring precipitation to the East, have been cutting
off a crucial moisture source from the Gulf of Mexico. And even
when the jet stream dipped and created large storms, the pattern
of the currents quickly changed, erasing the chances of rain
in the dry East Coast states.

"The result was drought,
or near-drought conditions that grew worse by the day,"
Le Comte said.